laboursfightback

The lessons of history

2007-08-23T13:41:00.000-07:00

George W Bush - the spoilt daddy's boy, formerly coke-snorting oil baron, election thief, onetime Texan chief executioner and today al-Qaeda's chief recruitment sergeant - remains one of the most intensely despised global hate figures in modern history. The actions of his thuggish administration have driven millions to the streets of every continent in some of the biggest demonstrations to have ever taken place. The chief representative of the most regressive elements of US society, he is most associated in the popular imagination with piles of corpses and rubble.

And yet - despite leading the most reactionary US administration of our times - he has always enjoyed allies in the political wing of the British labour movement. Tony Blair, of course, was the most prominent example; but aspiring Blairite hack Luke Akehurst is a more obscure but equally committed member of this tendency. Today he wrote a thoughtful post agreeing with the man humanity loves to hate - specifically, Bush's dubious comparisons yesterday between the 'American War' in Vietnam and the current US occupation of Iraq.

In agreeing with Bush's suggestion that US defeat in Vietnam was a tragedy that led to a huge tide of human suffering, Luke depends on the testimony of refugees who undeniably suffered at the hands of Hanoi's Stalinist regime and fled the country. He also makes a direct appeal to our socialist instincts by pointing out that the Communist victory eventually produced a perverse mishmash of Stalinist totalitarianism and unrestrained market forces. Effectively, the US abandoned its loyal allies in a civil war against a totalitarian menace that was to consume the lives of millions in Southeast Asia.

I happen to hold a rather different analysis of the US intervention in Vietnam. During the Second World War, a nationalist movement led by Ho Chi Minh emerged against a brutal colonial regime jointly led by Vichy France and Imperial Japan. Like many anti-colonial movements of this period, the predominantly peasant Viet Minh drew ideological inspiration from official 'Communism'; but, like other such movements, could only be understood primarily as a national liberation movement. Indeed, when declaring independence from France on 2 September 1945, Ho Chi Minh quoted extensively from the US Declaration of Independence. France immediately attempted to brutally re-assert its direct colonial control over Vietnam with the support of the US government. The US was fully aware of the overwhelming support of the Vietnamese people for the movement for national liberation; indeed, US President Eisenhower himself privately conceded that Ho Chi Minh could well have won up to 80% of votes in a free election.

As the French faced defeat, the US increasingly assumed the role of the former colonial power. The US helped catapult into power and prop up the murderous South Vietnamese dictatorship of Ngo Dinh Diem - before they lost confidence in his ability to beat the Viet Cong and had him overthrown and executed in November 1963. Prior to his assassination, JFK dramatically increased the number of military advisors; but it was Johnson who used the effectively fabricated Gulf of Tonkin incident in order to send hundreds of thousands of US working-class troops to the Vietnamese graveyard.

During the course of the war, the US carpet-bombed Southeast Asia, slaughtering up to three million civilians and ravaging an already impoverished country. Human rights abuses were rampant: we've all heard of the My Lai massacre and that blood-curdling quote from a US officer that "We had to destroy the village to save it." In reality, this was the tip of the iceberg: in a war against a peasant population that so brutalised them, the US army routinely burned villages to the ground and engaged in murder and rape of civilians on a mass scale. Infamously, the US army poured millions of gallons of Agent Orange across the Vietnamese countryside in one of the most grotesque acts of chemical warfare of the postwar era: today, thousands of Vietnamese civilians still suffer from the devastating effects.

Luke regurgitates the myth propagated by every imperialist country that loses a war: that it could have been won if there had been sufficient political will. This sort of myth is most famous for circulating among the German hard right after World War I: it has similarly been propagated by the US hard right since their country was booted out of Vietnam. The fact is the US was waging war against an unbeatable national liberation movement supported by millions of peasants in alliance with a brutal and despised South Vietnamese dictatorship. The antiwar movement in the US escalated as it became clear that the war was unwinnable (which top US generals began to realise as early as 1968 following the Tet Offensive) and therefore thousands of US soldiers were pointlessly dying in a fundamentally unjust war. It was a product of defeat: not a cause of defeat.

Yes, out of the chaos of the war emerged Pol Pot in Cambodia. Firstly, Cambodia was a country devastated by US bombing: indeed, the US dropped more bombs on the country than all the Allies did in the whole of World War II. Hundreds of thousands were exterminated as a result in a horror that was to be overshadowed by the crimes of the Cambodian tyranny. Secondly, Cambodia was liberated from the horror of Pol Pot by the Vietnamese army - an act opposed by the US government who actually voted at the UN for the Khmer Rouge to remain accepted as the legitimate government of the country. Indeed, the US actively encouraged Chinese support for Pol Pot's forces.

And yes, crimes were committed by the victors of the Vietnam War. Terrible though they were for those affected - such as Thanh Vu - they were not even on the same scale as the nihilism of the 'American War'.

Luke echoes Bush in drawing parallels with Iraq today. In his view, if the US were to withdraw from Iraq, there would be devastating bloodshed in the country, millions of Iraqi refugees and the possibility of the country turning into "an anarchic warzone of ethnic cleansing", or resuming dictatorship, or falling under Iranian domination.

Once again, I think it's fair to say that me and Luke have a different reading of modern Iraqi history. I'd argue that the Ba'athists came to power with the help of the CIA, who even helpfully provided them with lists of names of Communists (who were then efficiently slaughtered). Saddam's regime received military and economic support from the West during its war against then-Middle Eastern enemy number one, Iran. It then overplayed its hand by attempting to annex a country led by another dictatorship which happened to sitting on top of a huge oil supply, thus potentially threatening US dominace over the Middle East's natural resources. After Iraq was devastated during the Gulf War, the West then subjected its people to possibly the most extreme sanctions regime ever directed at a country with the death of at least a million civilians (deaths Madeleine Albright infamously referred to when claiming that the "price is worth it").

We all know the story since 2003. The US - shamefully, in alliance with our own government - launched an illegal war against Iraq using a false pretext. According to a peer-reviewed Lancet report, around 650,000 civilians have perished as a result - around 250,000 of which were directly killed by occupying forces. In the first year of the occupation, the risk of violent death increased 58 times as compared with the rate that existed under Saddam's tyranny. Torture, arbitrary arrests and civilian massacres at the hands of US forces and their client militias are everyday occurences in post-Saddam Iraq. Furthermore, the occupation has helped to open sectarian fissures and served as a magnet for terrorist squads that have indiscriminantly attacked Iraqi civilians - and helped to radicalise Muslims not just in the Middle East, but right across the globe.

I've already made my case for the immediate withdrawal of occupying forces: a withdrawal which can't come a day sooner.

Yes, there are parallels between Iraq and Vietnam - but not the ones that George W Bush and Luke Akehurst would like to draw. Both are unwinnable wars in which the US has used its unparallelled force against a civilian population with the resulting deaths of hundreds of thousands.

What Luke suggests will take place if the US withdraws has already happened - because of the fact the US is occupying the country. Millions of Iraqis have become refugees because of the war; US-promoted sectarian fissures have helped to provoke growing intercine sectarian warfare; Iranian power in the country has - undeniably - drastically increased because of the invasion; and violent chaos reigns supreme, with the occupying troops and the jihadis they have produced both inflicting terrible bloodshed on the country.

I'm not going to pretend that Iraq will become a bed of roses when the US withdraws. It won't - the devastation caused by the war is simply too great. But it will certainly be the beginning of the end of Iraq's current nightmare.

And if anything comes from the killing fields of Iraq, it has to be two words: never again.

All eyes on Scotland

2007-08-19T08:47:00.000-07:00

(I know, I know, I said that I'd be back blogging again... But hey, it's August and nothing much is going on. However, I will now be back blogging - and this time I mean it...)

Today, the Scottish Campaign for Socialism (CfS) - the organised Labour left in Scotland - meets in emergency session to discuss fielding a candidate against well-connected Brownite ultra Wendy Alexander in the impending Scottish Labour leadership election.

In true Brownite fashion, the Scottish party hierarchy is determined to avoid an old-fashioned democratic contest in which party members and trade unionists actually have a say in the future of their party - despite the fact that Alexander has the support of around 7% of Scottish voters. Fortunately, the left thinks differently. A statement issued by the CfS yesterday cited Alexander's "refusal to rule out privatisation of the Scottish water industry and her commitment to continuing with the economic madness of PFI/PPP in the public services" as a reason why "it is important that a candidate should come forward to challenge the failed policies of the past..."

Elaine Smith MSP (the convenor of the CfS) was in no doubt about what sort of issues a democratic contest should focus on: "We want to talk about issues like PFI, like bus re-regulation and transport in Scotland, like sustainable economic jobs. We want to talk about affordable housing. We want to talk about Trident in Scotland." These are, of course, issues that are close to the hearts of Scottish Labour party members and trade unionists - and the Brownite clique are only too aware of this.

What are the chances of the left actually winning if MSPs don't follow the example of the PLP back in May and veto a contest (6 MSPs are required to nominate a candidate)? Better than you may think. A poll of Scottish party members even before the Iraq war showed massive disillusionment with New Labour. In March 2003, only 33% of party members - in the supposed heartland of the Brownite machine - supported Gordon Brown as Blair's successor. Furthermore, party members expressed their belief that New Labour cared more about the middle classes and big business than the working class and unemployed. Such was their alienation from New Labour that 45% of members never attended local meetings. The situation today can only be worse from the perspective of the New Labour clique.

Opposition to Trident in the Scottish Labour party is so great that no Labour MSP could bring themselves to vote for renewal in a vote in June 2007: the majority abstained while 5 MSPs voted against.

Equally, a left leadership candidate would win thousands of votes in the affiliated unions. Take UNISON Scotland, which represents 150,000 workers in public services. In direct contrast to the rightwing Prentis mafia that rules the roost nationally, UNISON Scotland's LabourLink voted to support John McDonnell if he made the ballot paper. Other affiliated trade unionists could use an election to stand up against unpopular Brownite policies such as PFI or the war in Iraq.

Furthermore, a Scottish Labour party led by the left could sweep to power. This is a country in which, in the recent elections to the Scottish Parliament, the Tories only managed to win 13.4% of the seats. The SNP managed to win not least because they postured to the left of Labour on a whole range of issues. Excluding the Lib Dems, parties claiming to be left-of-centre won three quarters of the Parliament's seats.

Policies supported by the left enjoy huge support in Scotland. Two thirds of the population support immediate withdrawal from Iraq; there is overwhelming opposition to privatisation; and a large majority oppose Trident.

To put it simply: a left-led party represents Scottish Labour's best chance of kicking out the Nats and reclaiming power. A democratic contest would involve currently demoralised party and trade union activists and boost Labour's standing in the polls.

The political conditions for the Scottish Labour left are better than they have been for years. The Scottish Socialist Party - which sucked out so many socialists from the Labour party into what (unsurprisingly) turned out to be a political deadend - is in total collapse. A leadership campaign would revitalise the Scottish Labour left.

Not only that, but it would prove an inspiration and morale boost to a British Labour left still suffering from confusion and disillusionment after the Brown coronation shock. A Scottish Labour leadership election could help renew the Labour left on a national scale.

So, who's the candidate going to be? My own preference is Elaine Smith - a deeply principled , high-profile socialist who openly backed John McDonnell's leadership campaign from the beginning and did everything she could to help. However, I defer to the choice of Scottish comrades. Bill Butler may be the only left candidate who can get the nomination of 6 MSPs
- and if so, we must wholeheartedly support him.

If a contest isn't vetoed by Labour MSPs, then I hope that a left leadership campaign will look to the best aspects of the John4Leader campaign: a forward-looking campaign promoting 21st socialism that avoids the 'Old Labour' trap; a thoroughly grassroots campaign; and a sophisticated internet campaign.

First Scotland, then...

The Brown bounce

2007-08-02T05:54:00.000-07:00

(Firstly, apologies for the lack of blog updates... Hopefully I'm now back up and running...)

Since the coronation of Gordon Brown as unelected leader of the Labour party, Labour's poll rating has shot up. One recent poll put Labour on a whopping 41% and the Tories on only 32% - which, if translated into seats at a general election, would double Labour's majority.

What does this mean? There is no denying that Gordon Brown has been underestimated by both his enemies on the left and right. In the age of "politics without the politics", it was easy to unfavourably contrast Brown with his undeniably charismatic precedessor. For example, during John McDonnell's leadership campaign, I repeatedly argued that Brown would be "Blair without the charisma" - and I was far from being the only one.

On the right, Blairites and the Tories conspired together in an attempt to force David Miliband to stand. The Tories had not-very-subtle but surprisingly little noted motives for doing so: as Michael Portillo recently admitted, "The Tories pretended to be afraid that David Miliband might win (and noisily set up a stop-Miliband unit, like some second world war decoy), hoping to lure him into the fray." Portillo himself was part of the conspiracy; the Torygraph was one noisy media supporter of the campaign; and prominent Tory blogger Iain Dale wrote a piece arguing that Miliband is "the Labour cabinet member most Tories fear." In actual fact, the Tories knew that Miliband didn't have even the remotest chance of winning - but they believed that, given the lack of real political differences between Brown and Miliband, such a contest would have focused on Brown's alleged personality flaws. Brown would have emerged victorious but damaged - and all the mud thrown at Brown would have been regurgitated word-for-word by Cameron. Very clever.

Clearly, Brown has been underestimated as a political operator. He doesn't have Blair's charisma, but he's cleverly spun a new style: softly softly, "a safe pair of hands", and pseudo-consensual. The substance hasn't changed, but the style has - including the the rhetoric on foreign policy (Iraq, the "war on terror", the relationship with the US) and privatisation of public services. For many in the Labour party and trade union movement, the Blair era was like being repeatedly beaten by a violent mugger. The Brown era is more like being mugged by a sweet-talking pickpocket - it hurts less and it's less clear what's actually going on, but the result is just the same. This is exactly what makes Brown more dangerous. This is a Labour prime minister who has parachuted in to Government the rightwing bosses' leader Digby Jones and proposed an unprecedented attack on the Labour party's remaining democratic structures - but the left (still confused and disorientated after the leadership defeat) looks more impotent than ever.

Indeed, Brown has conducted a series of political masterstrokes that has sidelined critics on both left and right. How can the Tories and Blairites accuse Brown of moving to the left when ultra-Thatcherite Digby Jones is in his Government? How can the left argue that Brown represents no change from Blairism with this new style that he's adopted? With these sorts of tactics, he makes us on the left and our rightwing enemies look like irrelevants sniping from the sidelines. Unfortunately - with one striking exception - our enemies are cleverer, more organised, more united and more tactically aware than the parliamentary left.

Part of Brown's genius is that - how many civil servants he's sacked, services he's privatised and outsourced, or wars he's funded and despite co-founding New Labour - he's managed to appear distant from the policies of the Blair era, in large part because of his famous long-standing entirely personal rivalry with Blair. Blairism conjures up images of visceral hostility to the unions, rampant pro-Americanism, privatisation, and pro-war adventurism. Try as we might on the left, "Brownism" (at present) just doesn't conjure up these sorts of connotations. Even now, some on the left have illusions in Brown. One leading leftwing Labour party figure is going round telling people that Brown "is one of us" and a "Labour party man through and through" in contrast to the "alien" Blair - despite going much further than Blair by including Labour's arch-enemies in the Cabinet.

But there are more profound reasons for the so-called "Brown bounce". In actual fact, it is more of an "anti-Blair bounce". Labour's poll began to rocket as soon as Blair resigned, even when apparently contradictory polls seemed to show that Brown would actually diminish Labour's poll lead. Blair has effectively been a lameduck prime minister since the Iraq war. Millions of Labour's natural voters had grown to detest him. Mr Blobby could have been Blair's replacement and Labour's poll would probably still have rebounded.

At the same time, there are deepseated reasons for the crisis in the Tory party that have nothing to do with the alleged superficiality of Cameronism. David Cameron is one of the most charismatic Tory leaders in modern political history. The problem he faces is that, firstly, middle-class Tory voters have never had it so good: under New Labour, their wealth has reached unprecedented levels. That's why they don't have the same burning hatred of Labour that millions of working-class voters had of the Tories in the 1980s and 1990s: after all, they had suffered mass unemployment, the massacre of traditional industries, impoverishment, the end of job security, the disintegration of their local communities and other disasters.

Secondly, capital continues to have more confidence in New Labour than the Tories. New Labour carefully seduced capital during the famous 'Prawn Cocktail Offensive' masterminded by John Smith and Mo Mowlam; Brown has pursued pro-market, pro-business policies that have ensured a stable capitalist economy under which profits have boomed. Much of capital doesn't take Cameron seriously, doesn't see a pressing need to switch back to their traditional Tory allegiance and is more than happy to have a supposedly social-democratic government imposing capitalist policies, thus sidelining any potential critics.

Thirdly, the working-class Toryism which boomed in another period is all but dead. It's difficult today to even imagine that Northern working-class cities such as Liverpool once had Tory MPs. The entire city of Manchester today has no Tory councillors. The Tories After being smashed by the all-out class war of Thatcherism in the 1980s, burning hatred of the Tories still runs strong among millions of working-class people. This understandable terror of the return of the Tories ironically helped to sustain Blairism - like the pigs in Animal Farm who warned the animals that the alternative to their rule was the old farmer.

Of course, things could change. The current credit-fuelled boom could collapse. Inflation could continue to rise. Interest rates could rise further and produce middle-class hostility to New Labour.

However, I'm going to make these predictions. Firstly, there will be a general election in the not-too-distant future. Secondly, Labour will win the election with a similar majority as today. Thirdly, David Cameron will resign as Tory leader and leave Parliament. Fourthly, David Davis will be his only viable replacement. Fifthly, there will not be another Labour leadership contest for at least 6 years. Such a contest will be bittersweet for the left: there won't be an obvious successor in whom the trade union bureaucracy and softer left have illusions in (like Brown) - but there will be fewer left MPs and the soft left will be more likely to run their own candidate (probably Cruddas - who has gone very quiet since the deputy leadership contest).

Oh - and sixthly - Michael Meacher's leadership ambitions will continue unabated. You think I'm joking. Seriously, I'm not.

Forwards not back

2007-07-17T09:10:00.000-07:00

Britain after a decade of a Labour Government: more unequal and more polarised than for 40 years.

Why Labour?

2007-07-15T11:59:00.000-07:00

There's been a new outbreak of the age-old "inside or outside the party" debate over at David Osler's blog. Since John McDonnell was deprived of a place on the ballot paper for the Labour leadership, the assorted sects of the extra-Labour left have probably felt more vindicated than they have for a long time.

To be brutally honest (and this isn't simply a condemnation - why, given their position on the Labour party, would they behave any differently?) the ultra-left sects circled like vultures throughout the campaign, desperately hoping that it would fail so that they could pick off a few disillusioned Labour party members. Where they had positions of power (such as within PCS), they actually acted to block support for the campaign. As the Weekly Worker (the gossip paper of the ultra-left sects) reported, many of the sects secretly rejoiced at the outcome. Leading figures of the Socialist Party (who stood a candidate against John in the 2001 general election) didn't waste any time and called for the "dwindling Labour left" to leave the Labour party - and join them in the swamp.

So, why don't the Labour left throw in the towel, up sticks and found a new left party? After all, the New Labour clique has extended privatisation to areas of the public sector that the Tories didn't dare touch; it has failed to restore the workers' rights stolen by the Tories; and it has waged war against Iraq in alliance with Bush's neocons. To top it all off, the PLP vetoed an attempt by a left candidate to even have the right to challenge Brown, depriving party members and trade unionists of a vote. So, why not sack it all off?

In actual fact, the case against the Labour left even contemplating the utter lunacy of abandoning the party is overwhelming. The argument for leaving the party is based on an understandable but fundamentally irrational emotional revulsion at the excesses of the New Labour project.

These are the main reasons against the suicidal urge to throw our lot in with the dozens of miniscule sects out there:

THE LESSONS OF HISTORY
There have been three left splits from the Labour party worth mentioning (though the latter two might be pushing it): the Independent Labour Party in 1932, the Militant Tendency in 1992, and the Socialist Labour Party in 1994. The story with all of them is pretty much the same: starved off a base in the labour movement, all suffered a huge decline in support, membership and influence.

The ILP, for example, suffered a catastrophic decline in membership following disaffiliation. By 1948, all ILP MPs had defected back to the Labour party. Never again did the ILP come close to winning a Parliamentary seat and the party collapsed into total obscurity, before rejoining Labour in 1975.

During its entryist period, Militant had around 8,000 members, thousands more supporters, control of Liverpool City Council and numerous other councillors across the country, 3 MPs, and a significant base within the unions through the party-union link. Since it left, its membership is roughly an eighth of what it once was, it has effectively lost nearly all of its old sympathisers, it has 5 remaining councillors across the country and is not even close to winning a Parliamentary seat.

Finally, Scargill's SLP attracted a few prominent trade unionists (such as Bob Crow) to begin with, before collapsing into an obscure Stalinist sect with no base anywhere to speak of.

THE UNION LINK
Since its inception, the financial and organisational base of the Labour party has been the trade union movement. Millions of organised workers are directly linked to the party as a result. That's why the Labour party remains a workers' party.

When the sects call for the unions to disaffiliate, they are not only effectively calling for a further emasculation of working class political representation - they are also missing the point. If we failed to win the support of the unions for John McDonnell's leadership bid, what hope of getting them to support an entirely new party? The issue about the link is the failure of the unions to exploit it - for example, by placing demands on the party hierarchy, by supporting leftwing leadership/deputy leadership candidates, by ensuring that there are progressive representatives on the NEC, by parachuting candidates into parliamentary seats who back union policies, by sending delegates to all CLPs to fight for the trade union agenda, etc.

Recently, veteran leftwing Labour MP Bob Wareing lost his trigger ballot. One of the main reasons for this was because nine branches of the Blairite-led USDAW union affiliated to his CLP at the same. Why aren't unions such as the T&G doing the same to Blairite MPs? That's the sort of question we should be asking.

Two unions have either been expelled or disaffiliated from the Labour party - the FBU and the RMT. The result has been a strong decline in their political power. The only political influence they continue to wield comes from - yes, you've guessed it - parliamentary groups of Labour MPs.

THE PARLIAMENTARY LEFT
Elements of the extra-Labour Left have echoed Blairites in ridiculing John4Leader supporters because "only" 29 MPs nominated him for the leadership. This is despite the fact that the biggest number of MPs the far left has ever elected at any one time was 2 Communist MPs - in the extraordinary post-war conditions of 1945. Ironically, more Communist representatives were elected as Labour candidates in the 1920s.

If the Labour Left were to suddenly abandon the party - we'd lose these 29 socialist MPs, as well as prominent champions of the labour movement such as John McDonnell.

THE BASE WITHIN THE LABOUR PARTY
The Labour party continues to have tens of thousands of socialist members. In last year's party elections to the NEC, left candidates won 4 out of 6 places. At party Conference over the past few years, the leadership has been defeated on PFI, privatisation of the NHS, trade union rights, pensions, council housing, trade union rights, corporate manslaughter legislation and rights for agency workers. A recent YouGov poll revealed that party activists supported higher taxation, renationalisation of the railways, an end to privatisation, no rearmament of Trident, an end to the war in Iraq - and an assortment of other progressive policies.

If the Labour Left were to leave the party, only the most ideological members would follow us. We would lose contact with broader sections of progressive activists. Furthermore, we would lose dozens of socialist Labour councillors.

When all is said and done, the Labour party membership remains (by far) the biggest left political movement in the country.

THE SECTS
There are dozens of tiny competing sects out there - the mad, the bad and the plain bizarre. Between them, they have a few thousand members. None of them have anything even approaching a base within the working class. Despite arrogantly lecturing the Labour Left about our supposed failure to face reality, the sects have never (unlike the Labour Left) come close to any form of meaningful political power in their own right.

Two hundred thousand members of the Labour party have ripped up their membership cards over the past decade. Barely any of them have embraced the sects (who, themselves, have declined or, at best, stagnated over the same period).

The great recent recent hope of the sects was the Scottish Socialist Party. Though initially helped by an electoral system based on proportional representation and relatively good political conditions, the SSP predictably imploded and lost all its seats at the last election. Fortunately three socialist MSPs remain - that is, members of the Scottish Labour Party Campaign for Socialism: most notably, John McDonnell supporter Elaine Smith.

Fortunately, the chances of the Labour Left even considering abandoning the party are about as great as Gordon Brown announcing the expropriation of the top 200 monopolies. The bickering sects - when they take a break from splitting over which side to offer critical military support in Micronesia - will occasionally attract the odd disillusioned Labour party activist, grind them down and then spit them out again. Maybe occasionally they'll win twice as many votes in a council seat as the usual 1% they can muster. But they will continue to represent nothing but themselves.

In the aftermath of John McDonnell's leadership campaign, the Labour Left undoubtedly faces tough times and touch choices ahead. But there are no shortcuts to power. With our base in the party and unions, we have at least a chance to advance the demands of the labour movement. If we fail to do that - well, nobody else is going to succeed.

Thieves

2007-07-15T11:47:00.000-07:00

Support the struggle of Iraqi workers to defend Iraq's oil being stolen by the Western oil multinationals.

The case for withdrawal

2007-07-12T04:32:00.000-07:00

Today the White House is releasing an "interim report" on the so-called "surge" in US troops. The spin is that the report will be "mixed". In this case, we can safely take that as a euphemism for "disastrous".

The last few months have seen the most sustained period of high US casualties since the first bombs landed on Baghdad in March 2003. Over a hundred soldiers have died each month for the past three months. The supposed aim of stemming sectarian violence has failed. Not only do huge bomb attacks - such as that on Saturday - continue, but violence has been exported to other areas, often previously relatively untouched by the carnage.

The left should oppose the war in Iraq on the basis that it is a barbaric imperialist occupation based on securing the country's huge natural resources and gaining a foothold in the most strategically important region in the world. But we're also going to have to win the argument with a wider audience about why this occupation must end - and end now.

These are the arguments I think we must use when fighting this barbaric war:

The war was fought on false pretences. The British and US Government always planned to go to war and used a variety of deceptions and half-truths to achieve their aim. Despite all the hysterical claims, there were no weapons of mass destruction in late Ba'athist Iraq.

The invasion happened in defiance of overwhelming public opinion. Two million marched against the war in Britain and opinion polls prior to the invasion revealed huge opposition.

The war has been a disaster for the Labour party. 139 Labour MPs voted against the war - and there was massive hostility to the invasion right across the labour movement. Little else has done more to cause half the party's membership and four million voters to abandon the Labour party.

The invasion was illegal. Kofi Annan, the former UN Secretary-General, repeatedly described the war as such.

The war has caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians. In the first year alone, the number of violent deaths increased by 58 times - that is, 58 times more than the rate under an undeniably violent dictatorship. According to a peer-reviewed study for prestigious medical journal The Lancet last year, over 650,000 Iraqis have perished. And no, before the predictable comments, the evidence shows that most have not been killed by the sectarian thugs - 31% of deaths are attributable to Western forces, 24% to "others" and 46% "unknown". As many have died from airstrikes as from carbombs.

The war has produced the world's second greatest refugee crisis. 1.5 million Iraqis are refugees abroad, and a staggering 2.3 million Iraqis are displaced within their own country - that is, 14% of a population of 26.8 million.

Human rights abuses are rampant. Even CIA stooge and ex-US puppet leader Ayad Allawi claimed that abuse was worse than under Saddam Hussein. We're not just talking about the infamous abuses of Abu Ghraib or the barbaric destruction of Fallujah; it's also the widespread use of torture, arbitrary detention, night-time raids, the gunning down entire families at checkpoints and random massacres such as Haditha. Meanwhile US-trained militia such as the Badr Brigade engage in sectarian massacres, mass torture and random detentions. Because nearly all of Iraq outside the Green Zone is a no-go area for the Western media, we're only aware of the very tip of the iceberg.

Life for ordinary Iraqis is grimmer than ever. 69% of Iraqis are unemployed, 54% live on less than a dollar a day and basic social infrastructure has collapsed, depriving millions of basic public services.

Oil is the overriding factor for this occupation. Indeed, only last week the Australian Defence Minister had the honesty to admit that security oil supplies and maintaining "resource security" was one of the key factors behind the occupation. The occupying powers are pressuring the Iraqi government to effectively hand over its oil supplies to Western multinationals.

It is the presence of Western occupation forces that provides a target and a raison d'etre for the Islamic fundamentalist terror squads. That's why Richard Dannatt - the head of the British Army - suggested that the continued presence of British troops in the South (never mind the US troops further North) "exacerbates the security problems in Iraq". The insurgency will continue for as long as Western troops remain on Iraqi soil.

The vast majority of the Iraqi population oppose the occupation. For example, a poll conducted by the MoD in 2005 revealed that 45% of Iraqis support attacks on occupying forces and fewer than 1% believed that the occupation was helping to improve security in the country. 82% were "strongly" opposed to the occupation. Similar polls have all reached the same conclusions.

The occupation is radicalising millions of Muslims across the world and has provided a huge boost to international terrorism. Attacks such as the Madrid bombings and the July 7th London attacks were the direct result of the continuing war. The solution to terrorism isn't to crack down on civil liberties and even further alienate the Muslim community; it's to end an occupation which serves as a recruiting sergeant for al-Qaeda.

The vast majority of the British public support a withdrawal of troops from Iraq.

The invasion of Iraq represents the greatest crime of our age. It has drowned a country in unimaginable blood and chaos. Only in the years to come will we begin to have a real understanding of what this occupation has meant in terms of deaths and broken lives. The idea that a withdrawal of occupying troops will cause chaos is a dark joke: it is the very presence of the occupation that fuels the violence - which is exactly why the vast majority of Iraqis oppose it.

History will judge the left on what we did to fight this occupation. Let's make sure history doesn't damn us along with those responsible for the murder of Iraq.

It's time to COFUP!

2007-07-04T12:14:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday 24th July at 7pm, I'll be chairing the launch meeting of the Coalition Fighting Unjust Pay (COFUP - do you see what we've done there?) COFUP has been launched by the Socialist Youth Network, which is a group of young activists who are fighting for socialism in the Labour party.

We've got a pretty good line-up of speakers - Bob Crow, John McDonnell, Cllr Miranda Grell, Rory MacQueen (GMB), Angela Molloy (Regional Industrial Officer for T&G Region 1), Heenal Rajani (UNISON), Samuel Tarry (Compass Youth), and my amazing Co-Chair Marsha-Jane Thompson.

The launch takes place in Committee Room 9, House of Commons. I hope you can make it - and spread the word!

COFUP has two main aims: to campaign for Labour councils to include a Living Wage (that is, set at the rate of the European Decency Threshold) for all workers regardless of age in their worker procurement agreements, and to make a Living Wage without exemptions the policy of the Labour party at annual Conference.

The introduction of a minimum wage was a genuinely progressive measure supported by the entire labour movement which has - undeniably - benefited hundreds of thousands of the poorest workers. It is absolutely shocking to think that, in 1997, it was perfectly legal to pay a worker £2 an hour.

That said, the minimum wage is poverty pay. In October, the national minimum wage will rise £5.52 an hour for workers aged over 22, £4.60 for 18-21 year olds and only £3.40 for those aged 16-17 year olds. £5.52 an hour is not a wage that anyone can live on - and, furthermore, it's scandalous that a worker doing the same job as someone just a few months older than them can be paid nearly £1 an hour less.

Over the coming months, we'll be working to win over the support of MPs, councillors, CLPs and trade unions. We've got lots of possible ideas in the pipelines - a national demo, a lobby of Labour MPs, petitions, getting support for the campaign through CLPs and trade unions, lobbying councillors, and so on.

We hope that this is a campaign which the whole labour movement can unite behind. I'm particularly pleased at the support being offered by the comrades at Compass Youth who I look forward to working with.

This campaign is important in itself - but it also important for the Labour Left to start building these sorts of campaigns. For too long we've been on the defensive and simply reacting to various reactionary measures. It's now time to go on the offensive and start offering real alternatives...

The secularism of fools

2007-07-03T08:05:00.000-07:00

The 19th century German socialist August Bebel once referred to anti-Semitism as the "socialism of fools." As anti-Semitism once clothed itself in the rhetoric of anti-capitalism, today the rising tide of Islamophobia parades itself in the clothes of secularism.

As Islamophobia sweeps Europe, the continent's twenty million Muslims have become an increasingly embattled minority. The European far right no longer directs its hatred against Jews or backs; their targets of choice are now almost exclusively Muslims. Take Denmark - where the infamous publication of anti-Muslim cartoons in early 2006 sparked global riots by Muslims. The far right Danish People's Party is now the third biggest party in the country. One of its MEPs, Mogens Camre, once infamously declared that: "All countries in the West are infiltrated by Muslims. They are nice to us while they wait until they are enough to kill us."

His sentiments are echoed in Belgium. One of the leaders of the far right Flemish Vlaams Blog, Filip Dewinter, told the New York Times: "We must stop the Islamic invasion." In the Netherlands, prior to his assassination, the right wing demagogue Pim Fortuyn declared himself "in favour of a cold war with Islam. I see Islam as an extraordinary threat, as a hostile religion."

The rising tide of European Islamophobia has spilled far beyond the confines of the far right. In the Netherlands, following the assassination of filmmaker Theo van Gogh (who described Muslims as "goat-fuckers") in November 2004, several mosques were set alight. Late last year, the Dutch Government backed plans to ban the burqa in public places. In Italy, Berlusconi publicly affirmed the superiority of Western civilization over Muslim societies, while a bestselling book by Italian author Oriana Fallaci, The Rage and the Pride, claimed that Muslims "breed like rats, and they piss in baptismal fonts."

Only in this wider context can British Islamophobia be understood. Like its far-right European counterparts, the BNP today focuses its hatred against Muslims (see inset photo for an example of BNP propaganda). In 2006, BNP leader Nick Griffin was acquitted of all charges relating to his description of Islam as a "vicious, wicked faith" and his claims that Western civilization is threatened with destruction at the hands of a Muslim plan for global conquest."

In Britain, violence against Muslims continues to mount as the media stirs a cauldron of hatred. A 600% rise in Islamophobic attacks was registered in the aftermath of the 7 July attacks. Muslims find themselves increasingly on the receiving end of police intimidation. Following the London terror attacks, stop-and-search of Asians rose twelve-fold.

Late last year, a series of verbal attacks by senior politicians directed at the Muslim community triggered an outpouring of Islamophobic sentiment - much to the delight of the BNP. "Ministers caught telling the truth!" announced a jubilant BNP on 15th October as they hailed "a series of statements which show that some of our rulers are capable of speaking the truth and acknowledging commonsense after all." The thuggish (and thankfully now departed) John Reid) fired the opening shots in east London on 20th September by haranguing Muslim parents to spy on their own children "before their hatred grows and you risk losing them forever." Meanwhile, David Cameron momentarily forgot his cuddly rhetoric and pledged to "break up Muslim ghettos."

However, it was Jack Straw's description of the niqab as a "visual statement of separation and difference" that opened the floodgates for the deluge of anti-Muslim hysteria. "Ban the veil!" screeched the Daily Express, revealing that 98% supported such a ban in order to "safeguard racial harmony". In The Times, Simon Jenkins suggested that if Muslim women were unable to understand why a "westerner" might be offended by the veil, "it is reasonable to ask why they want to live in Britain." Jon Gaunt in The Sun offered the nuanced argument that "no group has been such a pain in the burka as some of the Muslims in recent years..." Others took the opportunity to declare open season on the Muslim population. "Muslim cabbie bans guide dog" was the almost farcical Evening Standard headline.

Other members of the New Labour clique were quick to jump on Straw's carefully prepared bandwagon. Meanwhile, The Guardian reported that the Government was asking lecturers and university staff to spy on "Asian-looking" and Muslim students they suspect of being involved in Islamic extremism. Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland suggested if this onslaught were directed against Jews, "I would be looking for my passport."

Furthermore, the Government's systematic onslaught against civil liberties has disproportionately affected Muslims and only served to increase the radicalisation of sections of the Muslim community.

In order to fight Islamophobia, it is necessary to understand where it comes from. There was a shocking audacity to Straw's description of the veil as a barrier to good community relations because of his prominent role in the murderous invasion and occupation of Iraq - for little else has done more to antagonise, alienate and radicalise British Muslims. However, the "war on terror" is fundamental to understanding the basis of Islamophobia. Western armies occupy Iraq and Afghanistan; western militarism currently encircles Iran; and western power backs Israel in its war against the Palestinian and Lebanese people. In other words, the West is at war in Muslim lands and against Muslim peoples.

Historically, racism has accompanied and justified western imperialist interventions. For example, the "Scramble for Africa" of the late 19th century was accompanied by the Social Darwinist dehumanisation of African people as backward and uncivilised. Anthropologists such as Madison Grant and Alexis Carrel published pseudo-scientific racist tracts claiming the innate "inferiority" of black people. While simultaneously purporting to be bringing civilisation to Africa, the European powers slaughtered tens of millions in their quest for cheap access to natural resources.

Similarly, Islamophobia has been used to portray the Muslim people as innately violent and brutal at a time when western armies are responsible for the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of Muslims in the search for oil this time, under the cover of "democratisation". History will damn the dark irony of commentators such as Leo McKinstry of the Daily Express who described Muslim attitudes as "repulsive, barbaric, prejudiced or superstitious" or for not showing "any willingness to embrace the tolerant values of western democracy" in the same week that Lancet revealed over 650,000 civilians had perished because of the western invasion of Iraq.

Muslims are not only the victims of a gathering storm of racist persecution. They also represent one of the most oppressed and impoverished sections of the working class. According to a TUC study, over two thirds of British Muslims live in poverty and suffer from the lowest employment rate of any ethnic group.

We on the Left have a duty to stand firm against this rising tide of hatred - and indeed to follow the example of John McDonnell, who was one of the few politicians to stand firm against last year's outbreak of anti-Muslim hysteria. If we don't - well, nobody else will.

Why didn't the John McDonnell campaign make it?

2007-07-02T10:42:00.000-07:00

From the very beginning of John McDonnell's leadership campaign, we tried to be as honest with people as possible. Getting the 44 required nominations was always going to be an uphill struggle, we said. The only way that it could be achieved, we believed, was by building up a sufficient head of steam from the bottom-up. Of course, we faced a vicious circle: if activists didn't believe that we could get the 44 MPs, then we wouldn't build the required pressure to get the 44 MPs in the bag. Nonetheless, what we said publicly was what we believed privately: getting the required nominations was within grasp.

When we didn't get on the ballot paper, we were faced with somewhat jubilant "I told you so's" from both left and right. Luke Akehurst claimed that we had only ourselves to blame. Dave Nellist and his Socialist Party crew - who have declined into total irrelevance since they left the Labour party - circled like vultures, claimed that the Labour party was finished and hoped that they could pick off some inevitably disillusioned Labour party activists.

Throughout the contest, Team McDonnell used to huddle in one of the Parliamentary restaurants (usually in a conspiratorial corner away from the hacks) and pointlessly swap percentages of how confident we were that John would get on the ballot paper. The percentages would go up and down depending on recent developments: a distinctly non-usual suspect had pledged to nominate to ensure there was a contest; a deal struck with another camp; a trade union endorsement; Meacher looking like he faced oblivion, etc.

In truth, the day that it began to dawn on me (privately) that we weren't going to make it wasn't when we didn't get the nominations; nor was it when Meacher launched his vainglorious "split the vote" campaign. It was on 28 February, and because of a seemingly irrelevant issue - the Government winning a vote to privatise the probation service.

Let me explain why. It was a straightforward issue. The Government was just blatantly, well, wrong. The plans were driven purely by a dogmatic neo-liberal agenda. The Government had held a consultation exercise over the plans: out of 750 responses, only around 4 were in support. 79 Labour MPs signed an EDM opposing the proposals. There were numerous mass lobbies of Parliament; frequent parliamentary debates on the issue; and the Government was repeatedly forced to postpone the plans.

In the end - shock horror - the Government romped home with a majority of 25. Only 24 Labour MPs rebelled.

Why did so many Labour MPs vote for legislation they knew was just, well, wrong? I'll give you a few examples. One MP was told that his political future under Gordon Brown depended on him voting the right way. He voted accordingly - supposedly with tears in his eyes (he didn't get a job, by the way). Another MP had been prominent in the campaign - he had signed the EDM, led adjournment debates on the issue, lobbied ministers, and spoke forcefully against the proposals in the actual debate on the day. Why did he vote with the Government? He'd been told by the Whips that the Government was a few short; that it would be a humiliating defeat on the eve of local elections (majority of 25, just to remind you). "I was lied to," he claimed.

There were those who honourably resisted the pressure. Paul Farrelly was told that, if he did not vote the right way, the Government would talk out his Agency Workers' Private Members Bill. Farrelly bravely voted against the Government plans; and the Government did as promised.

This whole episode was a very educational experience. Numerous Labour MPs beforehand had promised to vote against a patently absurd (even on its own terms) privatisation and fragmentation of a nationally integrated probation service - yes, introduced by this Labour Government in 2000 - that was meeting its targets better than ever before. After all, 79 Labour MPs had publicly come out against this total madness. The numbers looked solid before the vote. And yet, after a bit of arm-twisting, the Government won.

The incident made me realise that, if New Labour was to resort to that sort of pressure over a relatively low-profile policy, what would they do over the leadership issue if they decided against a contest?

David Hencke had already written of the Brown team's determination to stop John making it even before nominations opened. After John's undeniably successful performance in May's Fabian Society debate, the Brown gang firmly decided against a contest. The pressure needed depended on the MP. Brown made numerous phone calls to wavering MPs; and indeed, just a phone call from the Big Man calling for unity was often enough. For others, some sort of job offer did the trick - check the full list of Brown appointees and guess who. Of course, the formidable Brown machine wasn't the only issue; there was also the issue of a deal struck with another camp which, let's just say, didn't go the way it was suggested that it would.

The fact was, if we'd gone down with 35 nominations to begin with, it would have been obvious that a contest was likely and we would have scraped on. Brown wasn't going to allow that; we went down initially with 27; many waverers saw that a contest wasn't going to happen; and that was the end of that.

That this is the first time since the exceptional circumstances of 1931 that a Labour leader has been appointed uncontested - and that those such as Milburn, Byers and Hutton who share venomous hatred for Blair's successor nominated him nonetheless - is testament to the power of the Brown machine.

The tragedy of this is that we've been deprived of our right to vote for our leader. That's a tragedy that will come back to haunt the elected leader of the Parliamentary Labour Party.